Does govt openness meet its needs?

Reading about Google's lawsuit against the US Government this week for writing a tender with requirements that only a Microsoft product could meet, I wondered if we are sacrificing giving the government what it needs in our push to give everyone a slice of government pie.

When we're writing a document listing our needs for a purchase, we're normally writing what we actually want.

So if the US department in question decided that it wanted a product to be compatible with Microsoft systems, should this necessarily mean that it's being discriminatory?

Are we expecting too much of government by asking it to constantly keep costs down, yet keep its procurement processes open to the point of writing open-ended tenders, when really they just want that product over there?

Given the trillion-dollar deficits the US Government is running at the moment, and the fragile state of the economy, it makes sense that departments would try to minimise costs as much as possible.

I'm sure that keeping an open mind, regardless of what departments want, means extra dollars being spent at the tender stage. This seems like dead money in many ways.

Sure, in some cases there might be money saved by finding an innovative product that best fits the needs the government didn't know it had. But in many cases, I'd say the chosen system will probably be something similar to what's already in place. In which case, the money spent being fair is thrown down the drain.

But then, if everyone had this mentality the monoliths and incumbents would have a field day.

So how do we strike a good balance?

What do you think? Is the current system of openness something we cannot do away with? Is there a better way to handle procurement?